


Tea and TARDIS Doors

by AtypicalOwl



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Fluffy, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 17:04:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/587711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtypicalOwl/pseuds/AtypicalOwl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In between adventures, the Doctor takes some time to hold a vigil for Gallifrey. Donna finds him. Fluff ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea and TARDIS Doors

The console room was cold.

The temperature was not surprising. When you've drifted through space with the doors wide open for three hours, it's all the oxygen field can do to keep the atmosphere in, let alone keep the chill out.

The Doctor didn't care about the temperature, though. He simply hugged his coat a bit closer around himself and continued his vigil, sitting in silence with his feet dangling out the TARDIS doors.

Through the open doors, nothing could be seen but space. It wasn't empty space, of course. Distant stars, galaxies, and planets twinkled; small gems of light suspended in the blackness of space. At this particular point in the universe, however, there was nothing below the small blue box, nothing above it, and nothing to the sides for light years in every direction.

Still, something outside held his attention. He shouldn't have stayed so long. Shouldn't have even come, really. But he did, and he had. He had sat there until all the warmth had gone from the console room, until there was frost on the laces of his shoes, and until his body was aching from sitting still for so long.

A noise behind him drew his attention, but he didn't turn his head. He merely listened to the footsteps that carried someone up to the central console.

Behind him, he knew, Donna would be standing there. Probably with an annoyed expression on her face, rubbing her arms for warmth seconds before she told him off for letting the heating drop down again. Or yell at him about being a spaceman that doesn't need to put on a jumper when it gets too cold. 

The Doctor mentally groaned. He was in no mood to talk, or to listen to anything in Donna's loud voice. Her propensity for volume was fantastic when trying to get a crowd's attention on Sigsta's second moon, but it would completely ruin any moment of quiet contemplation.

Or maybe, if she was perceptive enough, she'd see his mood, and ask him what's wrong, pressuring him to talk with a worried, almost motherly look on her face. But that wasn't likely.

He was mentally bracing himself for the grating “Oi, Spaceman!” he knew was coming, when he heard a sound he didn't expect: Donna's footsteps leaving. The sound trailed off, and a distant door closed. He supposed he ought to feel bad about feeling relieved that she had left, but he just slumped a bit against the door, gaze never wavering from the space outside.

Another long stretch of minutes passed, and the Doctor could no longer deny that he was feeling the chill. His body temperature was naturally cooler than a human's, and Time Lords were a resilient species, but that didn't mean he couldn't get chilly after a while. He sat up straighter, getting ready to try to stand up without falling out of the TARDIS. That would be embarrassing, falling through space half-frozen because he wasn't careful enough getting up with stiff legs. A hand gripped the threshold, ready to push himself up.

Again, there came the sound of footsteps from behind him. He froze, shoulders tense. This time, he could hear Donna come around the center console, approaching him. _Here it comes._ The Doctor closed his eyes.

“Scoot over a bit, would you?” Donna's voice wasn't as loud as he was expecting. He opened his eyes and looked up at her. She had pulled on a thick jumper and a scarf, and was holding a tray with tea on it. She smiled at him, and nudged his side with her foot. Obligingly, he scooted to the right.

It was a bit of a shuffle, getting two people and a tea tray side-by-side, partially out the TARDIS doors, without anyone or anything dropping out, but they managed it. Once they were settled, Donna handed the Doctor one of the mugs of tea, a souvenir from some Earth shop that had faded vines painted on it.

He sniffed it, relishing the feeling of the warm steam on his face, then carefully sipped it. It was his favorite blend, at the perfect temperature for drinking. A small smile spread out across his face as the warmth slowly made its way down his throat and spread through his torso.

Beside him, Donna smiled too, and sipped her own mug of tea. She picked up a biscuit from the tray on her lap, and offered it to the Doctor.

He took it with a nod. Again, his favorite kind.

There wasn't much room between them; both Donna and the Doctor were leaning against the doors on their side, trying to keep from knocking elbows with each other as they sipped and nibbled. Together, they sat, staring out into nothing.

After a while, all of the biscuits were gone, and the last dregs of the tea in the pot had long gone cold. The tray sat behind them, forgotten. Donna rolled her head a few times, working out a kink in her neck, but she never made a move to leave. The silence was broken only by the pulsing hum of the TARDIS engines as she kept them stable.

Finally, the Doctor spoke. “Thank you.”

Donna bumped his shoulder with hers. “What are friends for?”

“This.”

For several more minutes, there was a companionable silence. Several times, the Doctor considered breaking it, but stopped himself because he didn't know what he could say. Small talk was just begging to become awkward and forced (and wasn't it a human from roughly Donna's time that had said 'true friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable'?).

That being said, though, one didn't need to be semi-telepathic to know that Donna was quite curious as to what was bothering her spaceman friend. One merely has to observe the occasional fidget, a hand that doesn't seem to know where to rest, and a quick sidelong glance now and then.

She deserves to know. To know what he's holding vigil for.

“This is where Gallifrey was.”

“Oh.”

The Doctor's shoulders sagged, and he closed his eyes. His head dropped forward, and he took a deep breath. Those five words were harder to say than he had anticipated.

The simple English past tense was so... Final. Finite.

Where Gallifrey _was._ Not where it was going to might have been, nor where it could have been in the futurepresent, or even where it woil haven be. Where it was.

It was, and forever would be, in his past.

Donna lifted her arm and wrapped it around his shoulders, pulling him over to lean on her. He buried his head in her shoulder. The scarf she was wearing was soft and smelled like vanilla. It warmed his nose up a little. He allowed himself to stay there for a moment more, before pulling his head away and resting it against hers, closing his eyes.

A simple moment of companionship. There didn't need to be words. She was there, she was holding him, and that was enough. For just a moment, he could forget all that had happened, and enjoy the peace that was now.

Donna sneezed.

That made their skulls crack against each other, and the moment was broken. “Sorry, the cold! It's making my nose run!”

“Ah, it's okay!” The Doctor rubbed his head, wincing at the remnants of the pain and finally pulling himself fully out of the depths of his memories. “Suppose it's about time we got going, anyway.” He helped Donna to her feet, and took hold of the handles of the doors to keep from wobbling on half-asleep legs. He took one last look, out there at the patch of space that had once held his planet, and now was empty of even dust.

Donna moved beside him, and laid her hands over his.

Together, they closed the doors.

* * *

In an empty patch of space in the constellation of Kasterborous, if there had been air to conduct sound waves, there would have been a curious grating sound as the small blue box vanished into the vortex.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The tense "woil haven be" comes from the "Time Traveler's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations", a fictional book mentioned in the _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy._ It is supposedly a conjugation of "is".


End file.
